Today we are one step closer to our sick Hunger-Games-esque apocalyptic future, because the new issue of Globe magazine — dated June 11, 2012 — features the frightening and disgusting coverline "WHO'LL DIE NEXT?"

Globe has a history of shocking covers and stories. 1995, the magazine published Tejana singer Selena's autopsy photos. In 1997, it published the autopsy pictures of JonBenét Ramsey. In 1999, the magazine was purchased by AMI, which publishes similarly raggy stuff — Ok!, The National Enquirer, Star — as well as Shape, Muscle & Fitness, Men's Fitness and RadarOnline.com. But Globe continued to push the limits of what's acceptable; in 2010, it published a dealthbed photo of Gary Coleman, and claimed Bill Clinton had six months to live. (Globe also published open-casket photos of Whitney Houston, as did its sister publication, the Enquirer.)

Last week, the National Enquirer had us reeling from a morbid photo shoot in which a model was paid …
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But there's something truly vile about this cover, WHO'LL DIE NEXT. Unlike an online celebrity death pool, the magazine is supposedly in the truth-digging business, a source for uncovered "facts." There are no "facts" in the sentence WHO'LL DIE NEXT. Now that stars use Twitter to share their daily goings-on and everyone's seen Kim Kardashian give a blow job there's very little mystery left in celebland. Maybe that's why Globe prefers to focus on politics these days. WHO'LL DIE NEXT is basically like saying We've got nothing, okay? No new news. No new scandals. If something crazy happened you read about it on TMZ last week. We are desperately trying to stay relevant and not get sued, so we'll allude to these health issues without actually claiming Mary Tyler Moore will die. Please just give us your money.

American Media Inc. — which recently emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection — knows that the celebrity gossip business has changed; the company recently put Enquirer on the iPad in an effort to draw younger readers and get with the times. But more and more people are flocking to websites offering up free tidbits of gossip. The Globe reader's median age is 45. Paper is expensive. So maybe the answer to the question WHO'LL DIE NEXT? Is: Globe magazine.